Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day! By saying this I am not referring to the population who got rid of a nagging wife, abusive husband or even a mother-in-law trained in Bin Laden’s guerrilla camp. I will write about them next time. This time I want to write about the country called India.

It was 63 years ago when we were ruled by the guys who could naturally speak Hindi with a western accent and didn’t need a convent education to learn that. They ruled us for 200 years and would have ruled us even now if they didn’t lose a cricket match to a bunch of villagers who played the game wearing dhotis and kurtas. The ignominy of losing a game that they invented was too much for them. Their rule ended in the same way it started. It took a betrayer named Mir Jafar for them to start ruling India. It was poetic justice that they lost the game because of a betrayer within their fold. The lady who sat through an entire Hindi song with lusty eyes for the village Idiot.

When we were in school, Independence Day meant the arrival of the peon carrying a big ledger book that had the notice about Independence Day. The teacher would read out, “Students are supposed to come to the school for the flag hoisting ceremony in their natural dress”. She would turn red in embarrassment and curse Gobindo Babu, the clerk, who wrote the notice. Gobindo Babu, who wore dhoti to work everyday, thought wearing a dhoti should come naturally to everyone and hence he used to think that the right word was “natural” and not “national”.

We wanted to hide from the public eye when we went to school on Independence Day wearing the national dress. We were scared that the national anthem Nazi would catch us, the same guy who made sure people walked away when the national anthem was played in movie halls. The only consolation was the food packet which we used to get: kachori, bhajis and sweets. For us, Independence Day was synonymous with this food packet in the same way that eating a Turkey Dinner on Thanks Giving is for the American population.

One such independence day, I was witness to a debate between my grandfather and his friend. According to my grand-father the most tragic thing that ever happened to India was the departure of the English folks. There was discipline and peace when they were here and “Now the country has gone to the dogs” he would say. His friend would sing the virtues of an independent India. “Now we manufacture everything from a needle to an airplane,” he would say.

Needless to say that my grand-father was wrong but his friend was wrong too. Instead of creating a market economy we created a socialistic economy and embraced the public sector companies. We put an embargo on almost all possible imports: from clothes to cars. Employment in the public sector was like a tenure track position at the US universities. What we lacked was the “publish or perish” concept that is prevalent in the US universities, which eventually leads to a tenureship. In the public sector companies, the concept was “procrastinate or perish”. A nation that got its independence on the same day as us a year later: South Korea (actually it was 13th Aug, but Independence Day is celebrated on the 15th) left us far behind in the race called GDP. The reason: they embraced a market economy.

Actually not everything was bad about having a closed economy. Thanks to the license raj, smugglers were regarded as demi-gods. We wouldn’t have heard the dialog “Kal raat mera das crore ka hira ah raha hai” otherwise. Or the classic dialogue – “Mujhko Mona aur Sona chahiye”. Those were the golden days when the mafia Don could sleep at night with a clear conscience. There is nothing immoral about increasing the gold reserve of the country. Supplying the raw material for the Hash Bash day was not on their priority list.

It was the time when it was very easy to demonstrate that you were rich. It only took a pair of Levis jeans or a pair of Nike shoes (then pronounced like Bike!) for you to belong to the “Haves” and not to the “Have Nots”. A friend of mine who had an extremely reddish complexion would classify the Haves as the population who could afford to have butter with a piece of bread. Something that I could happily afford in those days but can’t afford now (thanks to my friendship with Mr. Cholesterol and my enmity with Miss. Insulin).

Now, on the eve of the 63rd Independence Day, I see a major contrast to those days. For starters, everyone stands up when the national anthem is played at Fame Cinema Halls. The same National Anthem was played at an Olympics Game after 28 years! We are represented well in awards like the Grammies and the Oscars, and the west is represented well as “extras” in the item songs in awards like Filmfare and IIFA. Thanks to cable and satellite television, we can learn the frat culture of Phi Beta Kappa at the Tennessee Institute of Technology while the US media investigates the enigma of the IITs.

The majority of the public sectors had been divested. India has the fourth largest GDP in terms of purchasing power and the eleventh largest nominal GDP. India’s foreign exchange reserve is about 300 Billion USD (thanks to the gold smugglers!). We have beggars who now program their mobile phones to call people and ask for donation in USD, an indicator of India’s software export figure of $40 billion dollar along with the tremendous growth of mobile subscribers (650 million and growing). The most important thing is that there is a feeling that says that we are proud to be Indians.

I keep wondering what we should write on the birthday cake for India. How about, “You have come a long way baby.” The slogan for an US cigarette company can be aptly applied to the smoking hot progress of India. So let’s raise our glass while we take a byte from the birthday cake for our country and wish that she becomes a world leader in 2020: and this time the reference is not to the stupid game!